Moussaoui alters plea and declares he is not guilty

By Tom Jackman in WashingtonJuly 27 2002

Zacarias Moussaoui has reversed course again, stepping back from admitting a role in the September11 terrorist attacks, rescinding his guilty plea and saying that even though he is a member of al-Qaeda he had no advance knowledge of the hijackings.

Moussaoui, acting for himself, was set to plead guilty on Thursday to four of the six charges against him but baulked when United States District Judge Leonie Brinkema explained that he would have to admit he was part of the September 11 conspiracy.

"By my obligation toward my creator, Allah, to save my life and to defend my life, I have to withdraw my guilty plea," he said.

With that, the case of Moussaoui, the only person charged in the US with a role in the September11 attacks, resumes its progress towards trial, with no more hearings scheduled before jury selection on September30.

Thursday's hearing in Alexandria, Virginia, was necessary because at a hearing last week Moussaoui said he wanted to plead guilty "to save my life" from prosecutors seeking the death penalty.");document.write("

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Moussaoui's logic, expressed again in court on Thursday, was that he wanted to leap directly to the penalty phase of the trial and tell a jury what he had done.

But first Moussaoui, 34, had to show that he understood the charges against him. The French citizen could not make it past the first count of the indictment.

When Judge Brinkema tried to explain the charge, conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, he said: "I can plead guilty on this, but it doesn't still put me on the plane ... You are pushing me to endorse the theory of the Government ... They allege that I provide guest house. That is possible for me to accept this. It is alleged that I provide training. It's possible to me to accept this. But certain of them are not possible."

Judge Brinkema continued, telling Moussaoui the essence of the first count was that he had conspired with members of al-Qaeda to maim and kill people on September 11.

She asked if he understood. He replied: "Yes, I did provide guest house, but I did not know about September 11."

The judge said: "Then you're not agreeing to this particular conspiracy ... I don't believe that you are prepared to enter guilty pleas to any of these counts because you're not admitting to, or not prepared to admit, it seems to me, to the essence of the conspiracy."

A slightly flustered Moussaoui asked for a recess.

Fourteen minutes later he returned and said: "I cannot do this. My own point is to be able to put forward to the American people my role when I came to the United States, what I did and what I didn't do ... I have to withdraw my guilty plea."

The Pentagon will announce plans in the next few days to expand Camp Delta, the high-security jail at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where it is holding hundreds of suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters seized in Afghanistan, a spokeswoman said.

Lieutenant Commander Barbara Burfeind said a contract would be awarded shortly, and the expansion would let the camp house more prisoners.

The Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, this month asked Congress to approve expansion of the camp from 612 cells to 816.

Officials say that at present the US is holding and interrogating 564 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners there.

The fate of the prisoners being held at Camp Delta is uncertain. The US Government has set guidelines under which some of them could be tried by military tribunals, but has not said when that will happen.